Thank you. Please be seated. I appreciate so much this book and looking forward to taking advantage of that, and I hope you will, too. Everyday gospel, I was just flipping through it. There's many of these little lessons that are dealing with some of the issues that we faced in the messages I've already preached facing trials and struggles. Last week, we talked about some of the struggles Mayflower pilgrims were facing coming over but much of that book also emphasizes the themes of Christmas and the themes of the prophecies as we're going to be looking at this morning. I'm going to invite you to turn your Bibles to a great Christmas passage. We're in Acts chapter 10. Acts chapter 10, probably not one of those passages you often think of when you think of the Christmas story, and yet I think you will see, as I do here this morning, that this is probably the best place for us to start when we consider messages on the incarnation and birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now, I wonder how many of us already have our Christmas trees up? music already or you've been watching those Hallmark movies since July or whatever when they began those things I will confess to you I don't think I've ever watched a Hallmark movie all the way through but I think I've seen all of them because I've seen parts of them and they all seem like it's the same story oh I know it's gonna happen here but I remember an occasion, it was in early November, and I was trying to figure out, I'm guessing it was probably about 18 years ago or so. I entered a Walmart with my two youngest daughters, and we were going through the garden department in the back, Abby and Hannah are my two youngest daughters. And as we entered the store, Hannah, who was, I don't know, she was probably seven, eight years old at the time, something like that. Hannah, maybe even a little bit younger. But anyway, as we entered the store, we were greeted by Christmas decorations everywhere. Christmas music was playing. through the store sound system there was excitement of the approaching holiday season and again this is early November and Hannah looked up at me and she said what do they just skip Thanksgiving and there was a lady that was nearby that overheard and she said they usually do and for years in our home The practice was, and this was the rule, this was the law according to Jeff, and it was that Christmas season does not begin until the day after Thanksgiving. My children knew that was the rule. They knew that I wanted our family at least to recognize the significance of the Thanksgiving holiday. Maybe I was too strict, I don't know. But one thing was sure, I was fighting an uphill battle. And I realized that very quickly because the stores, the catalogs, the commercials on television, the radio music stations, I would get in my car, my car, turn on the radio, and they're telling me to have a holly jolly Christmas. And here we are at the beginning of November. And I tried my best, but my quest for holiday integrity was nearly impossible. And I've come to a little more sympathetic, easy approach to this. Don't get me wrong, I'm as committed as the next guy, as anybody really, to not overlooking Thanksgiving. I think we need to take advantage of this holiday, we need to study it, we need to teach it as we saw last week in those quotes by Charles Coulson that I read. One of the things I'm thinking is here I am of all people the week before Thanksgiving preaching on Christmas. I don't think I would have ever envisioned myself doing that other than the fact that I'm only going to be here for the next four Sundays counting today. We have three more and so that puts us If I'm going to get some momentum to do what I really would like for us to do, and that's unwrap the gifts of Christmas, as you're going to see on the slide behind me, the gift of fulfilled prophecy, the gift of purpose, as we'll look at next week. The gift of peace, that little baby, the king of kings is the prince of peace. And then we're going to look at the whole purpose of Jesus having to become a man, the gift of a person, and why that was necessary. So this is going to be necessary for us to go ahead and start today. So I hope you'll cut me a little slack there. And if Joanna, if you were watching online right now, I'm still committed to Thanksgiving. You know where I'm coming from, just so you know. Anyway, I do have, I have a cousin, this was funny, I have a cousin that on October 31st, his wife put this, so she's a cousin by marriage, she said, just so we are clear, Christmas starts tomorrow. This was November 1st, and I wrote her, I said, I've tried to make our family wait until after Thanksgiving, but have finally given up. and remember this was right before the election and so I put this in I said we all need a little Christmas right this very minute and so trying to convey to her that but but one of the things that is true you know we get in this weary weary world that we're living in and there is something about the spirit of the season that that we do think about this and we do crave that It's a frustrating time too because we're trying to make a memory, we're trying to make it special. There are movies and TV shows about the dad going out of his way trying to make this the best Christmas he can ever make it. And it's all wrapped up in this secular feelings and emotions. So I want us to get beyond all of that. But the truth is we are very weary. We're weary of all the news cycles, the wars, the rumors of wars, the downward spiraling economy. But one thing about Christmas is this theme of anticipation, and it fills the air. There's this almost palpable excitement that stirs our memories from years ago, and I love the old nostalgic Courier and Ives kind of vision and thought about Christmas. I think most of us are like that. The first sign is the displays of Christmas trees, Now it's the giant inflatables that we are seeing, and like I said, the Christmas music even. There's one radio station down in Greenville, South Carolina that on November 1st began playing Christmas music 24 hours a day. It's playing every day of the week. It's there, and then when you get kids like mine that do embrace and love this, you start smelling the the hot cider or cocoa on the stove and you start seeing the flashing lights and all of this. We have six grandkids and it's a magical season for them and we want to take advantage of those kinds of things. I want to begin thinking a little bit about that anticipation and you know a sermon is going to be good when you begin with Calvin right at the very beginning. Some of you recognize the cartoon Calvin and Hobbes Probably one of my favorite cartoons I've got several of those little books in the past and I think because so many of us can identify with little Calvin here He says are you awake? And he says is it Christmas it or it is it Christmas it is and he's all excited about it and then Let's go wake mom and dad and open all our loot Since it's Christmas. Maybe we should let them sleep in a little and And you can identify with that next little panel there, the anticipation, oh, we want to, we want to get in there, we want to get up, open those presents and go. And so the very next one, that's long enough, wake up, wake up, it's Christmas, and dad says it's a quarter to six, he let us sleep in this year. So some of you can identify with Calvin and Hobbes there on that third panel, the anticipation, oh, we're really looking forward to that particular day. Now, I don't know what was getting him excited, maybe a pink bunny suit. Maybe a Red Rider BB gun, something like that, I don't know. But it's not long before the anticipation wears off. And I do think we need to approach it that way. One writer put it this way, he says, before Christmas, children dream about Santa Claus and his glittering gifts of joy. But after Christmas, the tinsel tarnishes, the tree drives up, and it's back to life as usual. And with a sigh, we survey the tossed aside toys to the stack of dirty dishes, and the even higher stack of unpaid bills, and soon our ho-ho-ho turns to oh-oh-oh. And as we approach the Christmas season, I'd like to turn to a more biblical word, and I'd like for us to turn our focus a little bit beyond the sentimental, beyond the holly and the ivy, beyond all of the neat little strains of music, and definitely beyond Hallmark, And I'd like for us to think about the biblical word of hope. Oh holy night, the stars are brightly shining. It is the night of our dear Savior's birth. Long lay the world in sin and error pining till he appeared and the soul felt its worth. A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices. For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn, fall on your knees, oh hear the angel voices, oh night divine, oh night when Christ was born, oh night divine. I want us this morning to turn our attention to what I think will be a very enlightening and yet probably not something that we haven't considered before but I would like at the beginning of this Christmas season to begin to think a little bit more about what Christmas is all about as we look at the gift of fulfilled prophecy. I love Christmas and all of the decorations and songs and festivities. In fact, there's I really do get into all of this, these songs. I love to try to imitate Bing Crosby when I sing. And I love to even I was asked for a lady's Christmas party one time because I have a lower voice. to sing the Grinch. And you know, there's like 12 verses to that song. And it wasn't like a normal Christmas special. I'm singing, you're a mean one. And so I'm singing that. And then they wanted me to sing Elvis doing Blue Christmas. And I do a pretty mean Elvis, by the way. And I was like, oh, really? You want me to do that? But I love all the thoughts of Christmas. I love all that goes with it. But we've confused it. We really have and it's true all over the world. I did some research on this in the netherlands and belgium and luxembourg They actually start on december 6 with what they call saint nicholas day. There's a man dressed in the rich robes of a bishop That represents the saint and the children fill wooden shoes with cookies and candy for the saint and they leave them on the doorstep and he takes their goodies and he leaves toys, and he leaves other gifts. In Sweden, the celebration of the Christmas season begins on St. Lucia Day on December 13th. Swedish children believe that elves called julnissi help them with many holiday tasks, and many Swedes enjoy fish as their main dish for the Christmas feast. So if you're looking for a new dish, wives, I'm sure your husband would love that. Some fish for Christmas, maybe not. Norway, the Yuletide season begins on St. Thomas Day, December 21st. Church bells throughout the country are rung at four o'clock in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, and they're a symbol of welcoming Christmas. In Finland, the Christmas season leads up to a special Christmas dinner. Here you go again, a prepared fish dish, baked ham, a casserole of stewed prunes and mashed turnips, a rice porridge for dessert man I'm looking forward to that probably not making a mission trip at Christmas to Finland Poland the people fast the whole day before Christmas then they have a feast at nightfall and a vacant chair for the Holy Child always stands at the festive table my son Caleb does that for Thanksgiving he'll not eat anything you know leading up so he can eat as much as he can Serbia We got missionaries over that way in Croatia. The children celebrate the second Sunday before Christmas as Mother's Day, and while their mother sits quietly, the children steal in and they tie her feet to a chair, and then they shout, Mother's Day, Mother's Day, what will you pay to get away? And she then gives them gifts, and on the next Sunday, father receives that same treatment with the same happy results. we've got many missionaries down in South America many of the kids down in South America you talk about getting it confused they believe the wise men bring them gifts at Christmas children in Brazil and Argentina find gifts in their shoes on Christmas so you have all this confusion even all around the world where we've mixed it up There was a newspaper several years ago that ran a two-page spread. This was back when people got newspapers. Maybe you still do. And there's something about it. I was at a hotel. That was so nostalgic looking through the paper. But it was a two-page spread featuring some man-on-the-street interviews, and they were asking for the real meaning of Christmas. And you got what you would thought, some sentimental responses like family time, it's a time for children. Others were humanistic, it's to celebrate love for one's fellow man, it's the spirit of giving. And then there were others that were extremely hedonistic, just another excuse to party. But what was interesting is there was not one single one of those people that mentioned the miracle of the birth of Jesus Christ that God became a baby. And so I will confess with some of you, maybe you've landed here, I can almost understand why some Christians say that we shouldn't even celebrate Christmas. But like I said earlier, I'm not going to react to this because I think this is a wonderful opportunity for us to cease upon the sentimentality, to recall and to bring people back when they're a little more open, when you're going to invite them around. I was walking through the mall up in here when we were in Muncie many years ago, when Muncie had a mall. I'm just kidding. There's a little bit of a mall over there. But when Muncie's mall was there and I was walking through the mall and I heard like a song like Oh Holy Night and I looked at my kids and I said, they're playing our song. And think about it, this season of the year, you're gonna hear Silent Night somewhere, you're gonna hear O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, you're gonna hear this, and this is a wonderful opportunity to turn our attention towards Christmas. Now, the tradition of giving gifts, where does that come from? Obviously, the wise men brought gifts to Jesus. They didn't bring it when he was born though, did they? The wise men come at a time much later. They come to Bethlehem, but they're coming at a time later than that, the scripture says. It wasn't like you see in most nativity scenes, like we see even on the slide behind me right now. But the gift of giving in this season of year is actually a tradition that has its roots in the pagan holiday of Saturnalia. And if you go back and study this history, it was the Romans in their festivity where they were worshiping and celebrating the god Saturn, and they were honoring the god Saturn. And this took place in December, and they would exchange gifts. Well, as Christianity began to expand, they adopted some of those same practices there. Now, I'm not against that. I don't think that that's necessarily wrong. I don't want to associate that, but let's be a little more intentional in our gifts that we're thinking about. Let's look at it from the standpoint of what were the wise men offering, the Magi, when they gave the gold. What was the significance of that? Have you ever done a study on that? I'm only going to be here for these short weeks. I'll have time to unpack all of the Christmas story. One of the hard things as a pastor, when you pastor anywhere for a length of time, is to come up with something that's going to be creative or something that's going to be something that people are going to be attracted to when the story is so familiar. And you all know this story. But I love to tell the story, to be my theme and glory, to tell the old, old story, and even the story of who Jesus is, and really the gifts that we have at Christmas. And one of the great gifts that God has given to us is the gift of fulfilled prophecy. Now, I want you to picture with me the scene. In our text this morning, we're going to look at one verse of scripture. I'm going to read several, but I want you to understand where we're going with this. A devout Jew is called to the home of Cornelius, a Roman centurion, a Gentile. And this is a groundbreaking, momentous occasion. And the Holy Spirit had orchestrated this encounter, and it was going to shatter century-old barriers Cornelius, a gentile man, is seeking God. He receives a vision directing him to Peter. Meanwhile, Peter in Joppa receives a vision of his own, a vision that challenges his understanding of what God considers clean and unclean. It's a vision that challenges his understanding of the breadth of God's love. Peter arrives at Cornelius' house, entering a gentile household. This was A deed even considered unclean by Jewish law. Yet Peter, transformed by his vision, proclaims the gospel boldly. And remember, having been given the keys to the kingdom by the Savior, he is going to unlock the door of salvation for the Gentiles on this occasion right here. Look at our scripture with me. We'll begin reading in verse 34. So Peter opened his mouth and said, truly, I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation, anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ, that he is Lord of all. You yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed. How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power he went about doing good and healing all who oppressed by the devil for God was with him and we are witnesses And we are witnesses of all that he did, both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people, but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead, and he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. And here's our text verse today, and it captures really this monumental declaration. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins, through his name. Ray Stedman paraphrased Peter. He says, you Romans may not appreciate this fully, but everything that Jesus did was predicted by the prophets. Long before he ever came, what he would be like, what he would do, it was written down. Every prophet bore witness to this one fact. The only way you could ever find forgiveness of sins is by believing in him. We're looking at the gift of fulfilled prophecy, a thrill of hope for all people. We're weary, aren't we? But this is the thrill of hope. And it's not just for the Jews, but we're going to see this is actually a fulfillment of the great promise that God gave to Abraham. a thrill for all people. I want us to begin by looking at the idea of hope and we're going to see hope is found in the prophecies of scripture. The bible says all the prophecies testify about him. According to the Scriptures, Christmas was God's idea. And I'm not talking about Rudolph and Frosty and all that. I'm talking about the incarnation, the birth of Jesus. This was God's idea from the beginning. All the prophets. Look at Hebrews 10 verse 7. Then I said, Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book. What's the scroll of the book? What it's talking about there? It's talking about the Old Testament. Jesus' purpose of coming was recorded in a book, and the book he's talking about, it is saying, it is written of me. This is the Old Testament. Jesus is the chief personality of the entire Old Testament. Look at John 5, 39. You search the scriptures. What are they talking about there? He's talking about the entire Old Testament. because you think that in them you have eternal life and it is they that bear witness about me. And so here we have this declaration from the very beginning in the New Testament as we look back on what is being taught in the old. you'll recall when Jesus after his resurrection is walking with the two disciples on the way to Emmaus and he looks at them in verse 27 it says and beginning with Moses and all the prophets he interpreted to them in what does it say all the scriptures the things concerning himself this was not something that just happened out of the blue In fact, everything in the Old Testament was pointing to this momentous particular occasion and what was going to happen. God didn't have to come up with, as I mentioned a couple weeks ago, he didn't have to come up with plan B when Adam and Eve failed. This was in the plan from the beginning. He didn't have to come up with plan B when Israel rejected their Messiah. This was from the beginning. And we see, even at the end of the book of Revelation, what does it say? It will be for all people, as we'll see people from every tongue, every tribe, bowing before His throne, saying, He is worthy to open the scroll. And so what a wonderful thought as we look at this. Our text this morning is saying all the prophets testify Now, when the Bible gives these prophecies about the coming of the Lord, when you don't think about a prophecy, you're thinking about a prediction. These are predictions that the Savior is going to come into the world. One of the greatest proofs of the inspiration of Scripture is the Bible makes predictions like this, and they're fulfilled. God says this is going to happen, and it happens. Now, it's one thing to make a prediction. and for it to happen, that's one thing. But there are a lot of people that can make predictions, and I see this one time, they put something on the internet the other day, they had some guy that was making some current profit, made some kind of prediction, and it actually happened. But then you look, he's got 12 other things that he predicted that never happened. And so it was a guessing game at that point, you look at this. But no, when Jesus or the Word of God gives these predictions, they are all fulfilled. It's been estimated that there are between 300 and 400 prophecies concerning Jesus and his coming. There's no way for me to count that I'm gonna start counting I'm gonna miss one here there and so you see some numbers that are very close, but there's somewhere between 300 and 400 one commentator said there are 333 prophecies that predict Jesus coming as we read in the Old Testament 224 of those predictions we are told are from the first coming of our G of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ the others are talking about his second coming so we have if his numbers are correct 333 prophecies 224 we've already seen fulfilled because he fulfilled them in his first coming we have the place where Jesus would be born predicted in the Old Testament we had the manner in which Jesus would be born predicted in the Old Testament I don't know if you've ever thought about the probabilities of this there was a There was a book that was published many years ago by a man by the name of Peter Stoner. It was published by Moody Press. You can tell by the cover it's a little bit of an older book. Peter Stoner was a mathematician and he applied the modern probability theory to analyze the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies concerning the life of Jesus Christ. What he did is he had a lot of students that he was teaching and others that did all this research, they began to calculate the probabilities of these prophecies being fulfilled. He didn't take 333 prophecies. He didn't take 224 prophecies. He only took eight of those and considered eight prophecies that would be very familiar. If we had time, we would tear all eight of those apart. today we're only going to look at two or three of them as we work our way through this but I think you're going to see the by his statistics as he did this what he said the probability of just eight messianic prophecies being fulfilled was 10 to the 17th power or what is called 100 quadrillion, a number up there that you and I cannot even begin to fathom. He tried to illustrate that for us to say, okay, maybe you can get this thought if you took the state of Texas a state almost 270,000 square miles. You take that state and you put silver dollars, you can tell how old this book was, you put silver dollars all over the state of Texas and you put it two feet deep. all over the state of Texas. Then you stir all those silver dollars up and you mark an X on one of those silver dollars, you stir it up again and then you let just an average person go into the state of Texas and he can walk anywhere over those 268,596 square miles and he can walk this way, that way, north, south, east, west and then at some random point he needs to bend down and pick up one of those Silver dollar is it on the top is on the bottom is in the middle the the odds of somebody doing that He says is 1 in 100 quadrillion So when we look at this, this wasn't 224 prophecies, which Jesus did fulfill This is only looking at just like eight of those. So it's astronomical when you begin to think about this I said this wasn't gonna be a message on apologetics, but I'll tell you what folks we have a Bible that can be trusted We have a God that can be trusted We have a Savior that can be trusted. All the prophets testify about Him. For example, we see the mystery of His birth. Look with me at Genesis 3 verse 15. This is the first prediction in the Bible about the birth of the Lord Jesus. Theologians call this the Proto-Evangelium or the first gospel. It's after the fall of Adam and Eve. God is going to pronounce judgment upon the serpent and upon Adam and Eve. In addressing the serpent, he says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. This word Translated in the King James is the word seed. We see it translated that way elsewhere in our scriptures. And the Hebrew literally means a seed, but it's talking about your offspring, his offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. Or more literally, Satan's going to cripple mankind. He's going to strike at his heel, but Christ would deliver the fatal blow. Literally, he will crush your head. Now we're considering the mystery of his birth. This is the first one. Are we going to read something into that that's not really there? And in reading into something like this, you would be at danger. But what happens is we work our way through the scriptures, and as we work through it, there are further revelation that we get that clarifies what he is talking about when he is giving this promise from the very, very beginning. I'm not sure Adam and Eve really grasped the thought of this. I do think when Eve had Seth, she said, I have begotten one, and she thought Seth was going to be that deliverer. But we look over at Galatians in chapter 4 and verse 4, and we see the fulfillment of that prediction. The Bible says, but when the fullness of time had come, that is, when the time was right for the prediction to occur, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law. Now, when you think about this, when the fullness of time, there's actually two Greek words that describe time. The word chronos, we get our word chronology, our chronicles from this, and we would kind of think of this as calendar time. This is what we would call clock time. This is where you and I dwell. We're bound in this world of time, the chronos, time. But there's another word in the Greek for time. It's the word kairos, and it tends to refer more to not time in the sense of chronological time, but timing. This is God's time zone. This is kingdom time. Kairos means when the right timing or the right opportunity came that God sent forth his son born of a woman. Now if you think about this, it was the right political setting. Everything had been leading to this particular moment. The Romans had brought peace. You've heard of the Pax Romana? The Romans had built a system of roads that made land travel quicker and safer than ever before. You could walk just about everywhere from Great Britain on the north to the Indus River on the east. The Roman roads were free, they were protected, and little did Caesar know what he was preparing the way for the Messiah. It was exactly the right time. Another thing to think about, Alexander the Great, the great Greek leader, didn't know the result of his conquering the world would set the stage for the birth of Messiah. The Greek civilization provided a language that had spread across much of the known world. It was the main language for our people. And the Bible you have with you today was written in that Greek. It was just the right political setting and the right timing for this to occur when the fullness of time had come. God sent forth his son born of a woman, born under the law. It was also the right religious setting. because everything was going in a way that mankind and humanity was looking for an answer. They were looking for a deliverer, for a Messiah. Wiersme describes the scene this way. Historians tell us that the Roman world was in great expectation, waiting for a deliverer at the time Jesus was born. The old religions were dying. The old philosophies were empty and powerless to change men's lives. Strange new mystery religions were invading the empire. Religious bankruptcy and spiritual hunger were everywhere. God was preparing the world for the arrival of his sons. So the Jews were expectantly, eagerly awaiting their Messiah. It's like a messianic fervor was everywhere. And there's this fulfillment that God said that the Son of God, the Savior, would be the offspring of the woman. When Jesus was born to Mary, God fulfilled that prediction. And by the way, what a wonderful story is the story of young Mary, which had time to unpack her life and who she was. I will tell you this. She was somebody in need of a savior. She was somebody that needed the grace of God upon her life just like anyone else. She was not divine in any way. She was a pure young lady. And by the way, God could use her in her purity, and also he can use you in your purity. That's an admonition to us to stay pure. Now, you're not going to give birth to the Messiah, but there's something God can do through us when we are maintaining that purity. But he was born, the Bible said, he was made of a woman. He was a real man. And that means that Jesus knew what it was to get hungry. That means Jesus knew what it was to get tired. That means Jesus knew thirst. That means Jesus knew sorrow. It means God is understandable. It means he's approachable. He is one that can be very, very personal. God became a man. you and I when we witness to somebody this is something that's very personal that we can apply now for centuries that phrase the seed of the woman it puzzled the rabbis what were they talking about the seed of the woman and we we know that there was something that was at play here so this is going to take us to our second Point here hope is found in the prophecies of the scripture. They testify him not only the mystery of his birth But here we have the explanation the miracle of his birth. We read that this morning Isaiah 714 We understand what this is. The perplexity is cleared up. Therefore. The Lord himself will give you a sign of I went too fast, sorry. And it's listing that out and we see the fulfillment of that over in Luke chapter 1 verse 28 to 37. It's being cleared up when we hear The angel speaking to Mary that she has been greatly favored. It came to her and said, Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you. And when Mary heard that, the Bible says she was greatly troubled. And she was troubled because she knew that she had never been with a man. She was concerned. What is he saying? How will this be since I'm a virgin? And then down in verse 35, the angel answered her, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you. Therefore, the child to be born will be called holy, the son of God. And so we're looking at the miracle of scripture. And when you consider miracles, let me say this, the fact that you are here is a miracle. Every human life is a miracle of God. You know, you think that men and women can make babies. No, it takes something. Life is a gift from God. And so in every situation of a birth, you have really three at play. You have a man, you have a woman, and you have God that is working in that occasion. But this is a birth like none other because you don't have a man involved in this equation. How is this even possible? But then verse 37 says, for nothing. will be impossible with God. Nothing will be impossible with God. And we see how all the scriptures, all the prophecies testify about him, which leads us to the third point, the meaning of his birth. And we see in Micah chapter five in verse two, where we see even a very descriptive idea of Bethlehem, Ephratah. This is a place where Jesus was going to be born, a little town just about five miles south Jerusalem and the prophecy is telling this O Bethlehem afraid to who are are too little to be among all the clans of Judah from you shall come forth of me one who is to be ruler in Israel who's coming forth is from old and from ancient days and we see this fulfilled of in Matthew chapter 2 and verse 1 and 2 after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of King Herod and the king behold wise men from the east came to jerusalem saying where is he who is born king of the jews for he saw his star when it rose and we've come to worship him and again this is one that i wish we had time to unpack this these are familiar texts you understand what they were doing but they were saying he is the king of the jews they were coming for the purpose of bowing down in adoration to this king and the magi have come to worship him and that was the purpose of what we saw at play which i love when we look at this how all of these prophecies of scripture are testifying about him if you had time and maybe you just need to google it prophecies of jesus in the old testament you'll see 300 or more prophecies that he fulfilled being listed out but notice hope is found in the promise of scripture in the promise of scripture and this is very fundamental and important. I wanted to lay the foundation, but I want to tie it up quickly with this thought. Hope is found in the promise of Scripture. All the prophets testified about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sin through his name. And here we discover that the gospel and its promises again are for all people. familiar passage of scripture is Luke chapter 2. This is the scripture story about the shepherds. We're gonna tear this apart in week three in our series here, but Luke chapter 2, we see again that this was the good news. Literally, that word means gospel, by the way. This is the gospel. This is the good news of great joy, again, that will be for all people. Why? Because there is a Savior who is Christ the Lord. Now remember, Peter in that passage of Scripture has been already, he's told us that there's salvation in no other name but in the name of Jesus. Peter is talking to Cornelius in this section, and he's saying all the prophets testify about him, but they outline from the beginning what our biggest problem is, and that's the problem of sin. We've all sinned. We're going to look at that a little bit more next week as we look at our purpose. But then God's gracious provision is a Savior who is Christ the Lord. And he says that this is going to happen through Jesus. who is his name. Look at Luke chapter 1 verse 31. This is the prophecy of the angel talking to Mary. Behold you will conceive in your womb and bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. That is when you look at that you say okay that's an incredibly unique name. But the truth is back in that day this was not a unique name. Matthew chapter 1, we see the prophecy given to Joseph. She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus. It would have been a whole lot easier if God would have just told me what to name my kids. We had to sit around, get out the books, we prayed, we looked all over. The angel says, this is going to be his name. Now, it was a common name, and if you look at this name throughout scripture, this is just a wonderful name. Did you know there's a guy in the Bible by the name of Tiglath-Pileser-Adenbezac? Aren't you glad that's not Jesus's name? Can you imagine the praise choruses for that? Stu, that would be hard to do, wouldn't it, to sing songs like that? So we come to this name. There is something about that name. There is no name like that name. It was a common name back in the Old Testament. The Bible actually mentions five people in the New Testament named Jesus. Josephus, the Jewish historian, has 12 people by the name of Jesus. This would be like any common name that we would have here. But the name literally means Jehovah is salvation. And with that being true, we know that he has been given a name that is above every. name. I like the way that R.C. Sproul put it. He said Moses could meditate on the law, Mohammed could brandish a sword, Buddha could give personal counsel, Confucius could offer wise saying, but none of these men were qualified to offer an atonement for the sins of the world. Jesus alone is qualified for that. He came to deliver us from our sins. But I also want you to know, as we see here, forgiveness of sins. But notice the promises, every single one of them is going to be fulfilled. 1 Kings 8, I love this verse. Blessed be the Lord who has given rest to the people of Israel according to all that he promised. Not a word has failed of all his good promise, which he spoke by Moses and his servants. And so the gift of fulfilled prophecy is what? Salvation that comes through his name. Now, let me illustrate it. And this is hopefully this will grab your attention. I talked a few weeks ago about giving you gold bars. Well, what if this morning I told you I was going to give you $10 million? I'm going to deposit in your account $10 million. You sit up and think, wow, that's pretty good. I could use that $10 million. The only problem is you trust my character. You've heard me preach. You're not prone to think that Jeff Davis is going to stand up here and tell a bunch of lies. So I trust the preacher on that. But there's a problem. Does he have the ability to follow through on this? Now, suppose tomorrow you get an email from Elon Musk You're probably going to think it's the same Nigerian prince, right? But Elon Musk comes along and he says, I'm going to give you $10 million. Now you've got a problem. You know he has the resources. That'd be like chump change for him to give you $10 million. But can you trust his character? Is this promise going to be really true? What we have in God is a promise backed up by the one that can, and always does, answer his promises and he fulfills those. But there's a condition that is associated and attached to this. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sin. Now imagine for a moment I actually had $10 million. Let's say I put it in your account. Would that help you? Would that help get those Christmas gifts? Would that pay for that Christmas dinner? Would that help you? Would that be nice? I could put that in your account, but until you took advantage of that, you could actually die a pauper. You get that? We have to accept what is there. I want to close with a little story, and I appreciate your patience. I'm ready to eat, too. I was, and some of you may have heard this story, but I was down in Uruguay back in February, and there was a gentleman by the name of Juan that had started coming to the church some And he came because I had challenged the pastor five years ago to move beyond just knocking on doors. Their church had knocked on every door in their community three different times. I said, that's wonderful. I said, but when's the last time you sat on your front lawn and you just, you drank your mate, that's that little bitter green tea that they drink down in South America. When's the last time you sat and drank your green tea? When's the last time that you sat there and called your neighbor over and you just talked about the upcoming election? Or you talked about, you talked about the football match. Uruguayans are huge on soccer, so you're real excited about that. When's the last time you did something like that? And it was like a light bulb went on for him. So he started doing, this pastor started doing these men's stakeouts, like what we call that. But it was these carne asadas, which in Uruguay is not a two-hour barbecue. This is all day. It comes around as a festivity. They did it quarterly, and Juan had come to a couple of those. And because I was coming down to preach in February into his church, he sent out a WhatsApp message to everybody, a text message to everybody in the church, and Juan was one of them that got it. Jeff Davis, the director of EMU is coming, come hear this guest preacher and so he came out and he sat there and he listened to everything I said but I thought one's probably unsaved and as I began to preach that day and I don't even remember specifically what I preached on but at the end of the service I told the story that I probably told here before about my daughter Abby when she was four years old and she got stuck in the treehouse and we were down in Wilson, North Carolina, and she had gotten climbed up and was about eight feet high, and she got stuck up there in the treehouse, and she was crying, daddy, daddy, and I went over, and of course, it's a little bit above my hands, so I said, Abby, jump to daddy, and she put her toes right on the edge of that treehouse, and she did this, and I said, Abby, just jump to daddy, and she said, I said, don't you believe Daddy is going to catch you? Don't you believe that? And she said, I believe that, Daddy. Don't you believe Daddy would never let anything happen? I believe that, Daddy. And I said, some of you sitting here right now are just like Abby. You know the truth. You know that Jesus died for your sins. You even believe in your heart. He was raised from the dead. You know it was for you personally. But you're like the guy that got $10 million and just kept it in the bank the whole time. You never actually took advantage of that. Or like Abby, 28 years later, she's still stuck in that tree house. No, she jumped. But Abby, bless her heart, she jumped into my arms. And I thought at that point, what a great illustration for somebody that needs to trust Jesus. Maybe you're here today and you know it all up here like we were talking about this morning and before this Bible study time that there are people that know it here, but they've never let it get here. It's time to just jump into his arms like Abby did. Well, at the end of the service, I gave that illustration and Juan listened to that and he was standing. He wanted to talk to me and people were all around me talking. And then I looked and where's Juan? And I went outside to leave, and there he was. There was a ladder up against the little entrance to the building. A kid had one of those little wound up little parachute things that went up. He got stuck on the roof. And so Juan was going up the ladder. Juan's probably in his 40s, and he's going up there. And he's up about seven feet, eight feet high in the air, and he's shaking like this as he's going up there. And people are kind of like, Juan, it's okay, it's okay. And we looked up at Juan and I looked at him and I did this. I said, it's OK, Juan, jump. And he looked back at me, he said, like Abby. Like Abby, and he came down and he said in Spanish, he said, that's what I need to do. Jump into Jesus's arms. And I said to him, Juan, you've never done that. And he said, no, I've never done that. And I pulled him aside and threw an interpreter through a translator. Chicha, she's an 80 year old lady, was translating for me. And I looked at him and said, Juan, do you know you're a sinner? He said, yes, I do. You know, Jesus died for your sins. You believe that, don't you? He says, I do. You believe that if you would just trust him, you can be safe today. He said, I do. And Chicha and I were quiet. I wanted to let the Holy Spirit work, let this cook a little bit. I'm not manipulating him, I'm not gonna push him through something, I'm just sitting there looking at him, staring, and he's sitting there, and you can see it building, and he said, I was in a play when I was a kid, and I had these, and he was describing like butterflies in his stomach, and he said, I was having all this, he said, I'm doing it again, but it's better. And he looked at me, he said, what do I have to do to be converted? I said, Juan, do you believe that in your heart? He said, yes. I said, if you really believe that and you're trusting that right now, I believe you're saved. I believe you're trusting Jesus right now. But the Bible says whosoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved. Do you want to call on him right now and and know that you're saved? Oh, yes. I prayed in English, helped him. Chicha prayed in Spanish and he prayed. And right then and there. In about 30 seconds, Juan trusted Jesus Christ as his savior. You can see the change on his face all of a sudden. He was so excited. We gave him a Bible. He'd never had a Bible. We gave him a Bible. We said, where do I start? Over here? And he turns to Genesis. Jesus says, no, over here. And she goes to the New Testament. Start right here, the book of Matthew. I said, no, no, no. I pulled it out and I turned to the book of Juan. Third gospel in Spanish is the book of Juan. He was so excited about that. I have a picture of one with his Bible in his arm on his motorcycle riding off like that. I don't know, there may be somebody here right now. All the prophecies of the Old Testament were pointing to Jesus and what he would do. You know the Christmas story. You know about this. Maybe somebody listening online. You know these to be true, but you've never actually jumped into Jesus' arms. The Bible says today's the day of salvation. Jesus is pricking that little that little drawing right now is for you. I'm not trying to manipulate somebody here today, but maybe you're here today and you've never really, truly trusted Jesus as your savior. What a wonderful way to enter into this holiday season, knowing for sure you're on your way to heaven. And you can know not because what you did, but because it says those that believe. We'll have that eternal life, that gift and the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. Father, thank you for this morning. Thank you for your word. Thank you for the time we have to look into your word today in the scriptures. Lord, we don't think it's an accident that everybody's here that is here. We don't feel that it is a accident that somebody may even be tuning in, listening by way of Internet today. And Father, I just pray that your spirit would work in hearts and lives. I don't want to manipulate anything. It's the spirit that draws The spirit that gives people faith enough to jump into Jesus's arms. But if there's somebody here today listening to my voice who has never had the experience, even they know it with their head, that they've just trusted Jesus, may they be like one. like Abby in the treehouse who jumped into her daddy's arms, knowing that you will catch us, you'll never leave us, you'll never forsake us, you'll give us purpose, you'll give us all of the promises of scripture, and Lord, we have that special promise of eternity with you, worshiping and glorifying you, a life everlasting. Lord, not because of anything we've done, but because the wonderful gift that you gave and that you planned, even from the very beginning, When you place that curse upon the serpent and the promise upon Mary, when you put, Lord, the promise to Abraham that a deliverer would come out of his seat, out of his lineage, that would not just bless the Jews, but bless all nations. And Lord, I pray today that today would be the day of salvation for those that don't know you. Thank you so much for the privilege we have to be here. Thank you so much for your word. May we make much of it this season, we pray in Jesus' name, amen.